Migration and Scotland

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Tuesday 11th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)]

We have a problem in Scotland, as I think everyone has recognised. [Interruption.] We have many problems in Scotland, most of them emanating from Holyrood, but that is for another day.

As a country, we are simply not attracting enough people to Scotland to live, work or invest. According to the Office for National Statistics, between 2016 and 2018 Scotland attracted, on average, only 8% of immigrants to the UK, fewer than the north-west of England, Yorkshire and the Humber, the west midlands, the east of England, the south-east, London and the south-west.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Would the hon. Gentleman concede that one of the problems is that when migrant workers are attracted to come to live in our communities, there are pen pushers at the Home Office who prevent them from coming? I am thinking particularly of the fishing communities on the west coast that are looking for non-European economic area labour. Year upon year, one person in Westminster says no even though the communities say yes.

[Andrew Bowie]

It might surprise the House to hear that I agree with the hon. Member, although not to the extent of describing some of the hard-working civil servants in the Home Office as pen pushers. They are doing a valuable job, but I think we have to look more imaginatively at how we attract labour to the sectors that are crying out for them, and particularly to the fisheries on the west coast of Scotland, which he ably represents in this House.

Compared with what we were previously, we are now a country of in-migration. We have a growing population in Scotland, but if Scotland’s economy is to continue to grow, there is a concern that, even with freedom of movement, we are not attracting enough people to make up for what will soon become a declining population through a simple lack of natural growth, with deaths already outnumbering births. Last year, there were already 7,000 more deaths than births in Scotland, and the problem is even more stark in rural communities.

There is not a country in the world where the Scots have not left their mark. By virtue of our being part of a larger United Kingdom, the door was open to Scots to travel the world and to build, engineer and prosper in every corner of the globe. That is a fact that, as Scots, we are incredibly proud of.

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[Andrew Bowie]

No, I do not think there is any reason why a UK-wide system could not address those issues. In fact, on the very issue of attracting talent to the fisheries sector, I have written to the Home Secretary to ask if we could develop similar processes to the one we have for seasonal agricultural labour for those who want to engage in the fisheries sector. There is absolutely no reason why we could not find a solution within the wider UK framework.

Just as Scotland has been failing to attract many immigrants to settle in Scotland while we were a member of the EU, so the number of seasonal workers willing to travel to Scotland to perform seasonal labour has been in decline for some years. Castleton Farm, for example, in my constituency—best jam, bar none, you will ever taste—saw a 15% shortage of seasonal labour last summer, leading to an estimated loss of over 100 tonnes of produce. And that was while we remained in the EU. In the same way as we must look at why Scotland is not attracting enough immigrants to stay in Scotland, we must also ask why Scottish farming is not attracting enough labour.

Part of the reason, of course, is that there is a labour shortage across Europe. Belgian, German and Irish farmers are increasingly sourcing their seasonal labour from outside the EU, chiefly from countries such as Ukraine. Non-EU seasonal labour is evidently part of the solution in Scotland, just as it is in agriculture in the remaining 27 states. Much of the decline in available European labour is down to the rapid and, of course, welcome progress that many eastern European countries have made in developing their own domestic economies.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his earlier kind words, but can I put the political point to him that Ireland can look further and act on its wishes because it has the independence to do so? Unfortunately, Scotland does not have the independence to make the decisions that Ireland can make to get labour from Ukraine when it needs it.

[Andrew Bowie]

The hon. Gentleman obviously makes a very good point. However, as I said in answer to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (David Duguid), there is no reason why we cannot address those issues as part of a wider UK immigration system.

Those who want to travel to work in agriculture have other options apart from Scotland, and Scottish farmers have been in direct competition for available labour with French and German farmers for some time, as well as with farmers from across the rest of the UK. I was pleased to see that the Government have pledged to extend the pilot of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme to 10,000 workers a year, up from the current limit of 2,500—thanks to the lobbying and hard work of Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament, I might say. That is a step in the right direction, but I hope it is a signal of intent and the beginning of a direction of travel. I also hope it will be delivered in a timely fashion. It is critical that farmers have time to plan for next summer.

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[Alison Thewliss]

The hon. Gentleman is correct about that. As a member of the all-party group on hospitality, I agree very much that that sector needs to have people coming in here to do those jobs and that we value them as well, because they bring not only their skills to our restaurants and catering services, but their food, which we enjoy. We should thank them, rather than making them feel unwelcome.

Let me move on to people in the care sector and the issues they face. A couple came to see me on 16 December 2015, having worked in care homes and been very much valued there. They were then at the point of working in their care home voluntarily because the Home Office had rescinded their right to work. They had a son they are putting through school. They came to see me at my surgery on 13 January to say that finally, after five years, they had been granted their status. They were looking forward to going back to work in the care home, because that care home had kept the faith that they would eventually get the chance to work and be paid for it. During that period of many years they were hosted by volunteers from Positive Action in Housing, and they were supported by the British Red Cross, their solicitors McGlashan MacKay and a range of services that provided them with food for free, with food banks and with other things. They had to come to my office to get school uniforms for their growing son. During that time they were destitute. What does that say to that family? They want to come here and work hard, they are in a valuable role, but the Home Office says, “No, actually, we don’t need you.” We know that we do. We know that we need people in the care sector, yet a couple who have dedicated their lives to caring are being told that they cannot do that. So I have no confidence in the UK Government to make the required changes that will allow constituents such as these to manage their lives, to be a success and to feel welcome in this country.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I echo the point made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) about this being a well thought out speech. I also echo his point about hotels and my hon. Friend’s point about the care sector. At the heart of this debate is surely the one-size-fits-all approach the UK Government take. They do not do what Switzerland or Canada do; they think that Whitehall and Westminster know best, but in the west highlands we have needs, and Glasgow has needs. We need to have a decentralised policy—not one that suits the headline writers of the Daily Mail, but one that suits Scotland.

[Alison Thewliss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. In many ways, his constituency could not be any more different from mine, but the needs are not being catered for by the Home Office in any way.

We have been expecting an announcement from the Government on what the new post-Brexit immigration policy will look like, and there has been a lot of speculation that we will have an Australian-style points-based system. However, there has been no acknowledgement that Australia’s system allows for a degree of autonomy for territories to decide their own criteria on migration, with the ability to adjust their policy to their own diverse needs. There has been no acknowledgement, either, that the Australian system is much more generous than the one we have here just now, or that in her first speech after she demitted office as Prime Minister the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) got up and said pretty much to the Home Office, “Good luck. We looked at it.” So I wish the Minister all the best of luck in trying to establish a system that does not have the evidence to back it up.

We on the SNP Benches have long called for a separate immigration policy for Scotland, and we have long been told by the UK Government that that would not work. We do not believe them on that, as on so many other things, because research from the Fraser of Allander Institute and the David Hume Institute has shown not only that it would work but that it is vital if Scotland is to meet the demographic challenges of the future. It is not good enough for the UK Government to take this one-size-fits-all approach when there are pressing concerns in Scotland. If they will not take action to address this issue, perhaps they should allow the people of Scotland to decide for themselves who they want to be in charge.

If you will indulge me and allow it, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to highlight a couple of cases from my recent casework. The Scottish Government said as part of their Budget last week that they are going to look to set up some means of addressing the issue of “no recourse to public funds”. This relates to what the right hon. Member for Forest of Dean said about people not being allowed to access the benefits system in any way. I had a woman who had been coming to my surgeries for many years. She was No. 3 on my books after the election in 2015. She was working hard in a low-paid role and doing everything that she could but, because she had no recourse to public funds, she was just about managing the rent and her electricity, but she could not buy Christmas presents or school uniforms or put food on the table. That is not fair: she is doing everything that she can, yet because of “no recourse to public funds” she cannot do anything about it. The Home Office is sneaky on this, because every time somebody tries to find a workaround for “no recourse to public funds”, the Home Office promptly shuts it down. The Scottish Government want to help. The Scottish Government do not want people to face destitution. It is immoral and wrong for the UK Home Office to decide that it wants to make people destitute and to make people struggle so hard that they want to leave this country in poverty.

I also wish to mention the case of a particular constituent who came to me. I do not want to mention names because the case is quite sensitive, but this man is a local imam and his wife had complications giving birth, lost 17 litres of blood and was given a transfusion during a horrific ordeal in her pregnancy. They applied for the imam’s mother to come over to support her after the birth, because she was in desperate need and, because of parental leave issues, he had to go back to work. The Home Office refused that reasonable visitor’s visa. There is a lack of compassion that runs through the Home Office and prevents people from getting visitors’ visas on very reasonable grounds. Week in, week out, I see people who are desperate, broken and sad. They are people who want to show off Scotland and their new home. Members have talked about not being welcoming enough; the visitor visa system, which refuses people for no reason whatsoever other than the fact that they come from a country where people are brown, is a system that cannot stand and must stop. [Interruption.] The hon. Member shakes his head; he can come and sit in my surgery. [Interruption.] He is looking about. You know who you are. The Minister, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), shakes his head; he can come and sit in my surgery and he can listen to the people who come to my surgeries from particular countries who get refused visitor visas time and time again.

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[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss). Although I did not agree with everything that she said—she will not be surprised by that—whenever she speaks in this place, her sincerity and the affection that she has for her constituents and the work that she does on their behalf shine through every word that she says.

While I am feeling in a magnanimous mood, may I also congratulate—for what it is worth, coming from me—the hon. Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy), who is new to the Front Bench and gave a compelling speech that was professionally delivered? Of course, it paled in comparison with the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates), which the House was very interested to hear—although she is not that interested to hear what I have to say about her speech; she has left her place. There we are. That is the benefit of making a maiden speech.

A number of Members on the Opposition Benches have referenced the Migration Advisory Committee. I have to say that, if I had my way, I would abolish it—in the same way that I would either abolish or ignore the organisation Migration Watch. Neither of them is anywhere on pace when it comes to the needs that our country, as a united country, faces when it comes to migration. In a post-EU membership age, it is perfectly proper that our immigration policies, to meet all quarters of the United Kingdom, are forged in this place by Ministers, scrutinised by this House and approved, and then they can change. There should be receptiveness and fluidity within whatever system we alight on to meet the needs of our country.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I could perhaps double underline what the hon. Gentleman said about the Migration Advisory Committee, which opines on all various levels of skill. We have challenged the MAC: if it thinks that skilled workers who are going to work on fishing boats are not that skilled, would one of the people on the MAC care to go out on a fishing boat and show us how unskilled the job is? We have yet to see one of them, after a number of years of asking.

[Simon Hoare]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I welcome wholeheartedly what appears to be the mood music coming out of No. 10 from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister: scant regard is going to be paid to the MAC’s advice on a salary threshold. It is entirely immoral to put a value on a person principally predicated on what they earn. There are millions of people in this country who do vital work— Members across the House have referenced them—whether it is in agriculture, hospitality, social care, or the national health service. Some of those jobs will be skilled, and some of them will not be skilled, but they are absolutely vital. I always think to myself that the skilled Nobel prize winner, or the great scientist coming up with some whizzy thing, needs the person in the despatch department to pack it up and send it out, and make sure that the factory or the laboratory is clean. A functioning economy is a network: it is a spider’s web of different skills at different pay grades, of different people all making a contribution.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. He is being very generous. I have a point to add to the excellent point that he made about salaries. Again, there is a centralisation of thinking. We know that average salaries are not the same across Scotland—I am talking here about Na h-Eileanan an Iar, as well as other places. They differ again, depending on whether the policy is set in London, Manchester, or Birmingham. The idea that salaries are uniform across the United Kingdom is clearly a nutty one. I am glad to hear that it is going.

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is not just the regional and county variations, but the spending power of that salary. A salary of £20,000 earned in North Dorset is going to get someone far more than they would get if they were living in north Westminster or north Harrow—[Interruption.] Or Chelmsford, says my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford). The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to make that point. I think my figures are correct, but the average annual take-home salary is now £24,500. In North Dorset, it is £18,500. There are huge variations and it is just 122 miles from this place to the edge of my constituency.

I would understand the motivation behind this motion if it looked as if the Government were going to be moving to some sort of draconian Trumpian suite of immigration policies. I would suggest from all that I hear and listen to that nothing could be further from the truth. I am convinced that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has the most liberal of instincts and global of outlooks when it comes to immigration. One need only look to the time when he was Mayor of London to see a practical example of that, rather that its being a merely theoretical proposition.

I do not see the need or desirability for, and I am unconvinced by the deliverable workability of, this separate approach to immigration. I accept that the motion advocates an add-on rather than an instead-of—I get that, I understand that—but given that all the noises coming from Downing Street, both No. 10 and No. 11, are that we want to have a suite of immigration policies that is rapidly responsive to economic needs, whether that is in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England or North Dorset, I would suggest to SNP Members that at this stage in the proceedings there is nothing to worry about. There are concerns, of course. We will want to make sure that those policies are delivered on, but I do not think we need to worry about them just yet.

With the indulgence of SNP Members, whose motion this is, may I make a general point? In 2015, when many of us came into the House at the same time, I spoke on Second Reading of the Scotland Bill from almost this position on this Bench. The circumstances were similar. The SNP had done fantastically well in that general election and Members had a spring in their step. Those of us who are Unionists need to reflect on those results and calibrate a persuasive narrative to underpin, revitalise and reaffirm the benefits we see in the maintenance of the United Kingdom. To be a Unionist is not to be anti-Scottish. To be anti-separatist is not to have a grudge against the Scottish people. It is not to try to slam all of the doors to Scottish aspiration merely because we think that separation is wrong.

I am very pleased, and honoured in fact, to call very many Members on those Benches my friends. When I talk to constituents in North Dorset, they often ask what it is like with the SNP—

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Good guys!

[Simon Hoare]

I do not always say that, but what I do say is that they should not judge politics on what can often be those fractious discourses taking place on the Floor. We will have an argument here, and temperatures get a bit heated and blood pressure goes up, but outside in the Members’ Lobby, the Dining Room, the Tea Room or wherever we might happen to be, I will not say that everything is friendship and honeymoon music, but it is a lot better—[Interruption.] It’s not far off, the hon. Gentleman says. But it is a whole lot better than this Chamber often allows people to think.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

On sunshine and honeymoon music, will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hoare]

I do not know which the hon. Gentleman is offering me, and I am rather worried to give way, but in the interests of curiosity, which I know killed the cat, I will of course do so.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

Talking of sunshine and honeymoon music, I was listening to the hon. Gentleman’s passionate plea on the case for Unionism, but when he looks over the past century and sees the Republic of Ireland as the independent state that it is, does he not think that Scotland could do just as well or a little better if it could make its own decisions as Ireland can, both on immigration and on a raft of other issues, rather than having them being made by a Government from a party that we have not voted for since 1955?

[Simon Hoare]

As far as I am concerned, it is not about whether Scotland could or could not do the job. There is an advanced and deep political skillset, a developed civic society, academia and all the rest of it. [Interruption.] I am not going to be the first SNP Member for Dorset—don’t worry. It is a tempting offer, but I am going to have to decline. But in theory, could this be done? Of course. I am a Welshman. Could Wales go it alone? In theory, yes. But just because something is feasible does not necessarily make it desirable. Just because science can does not necessarily mean that science has to.

Deep within my DNA is a belief that the four quarters of the United Kingdom—through acts of history, politics, religion, shared interest, language, war and defensive values—are better, stronger and a more potent force for good in the world standing together. I do not say that to be offensive to Scottish Members, or to offend residents and fellow citizens of Scotland; it is just deep within my DNA.

I hope that the House will not find it too schmaltzy or amusing if I say that a number of Government Members often feel put off, or inhibited from, treading into the choppy and potentially dangerous waters of these debates and exchanges in this place, and we do so sometimes with a feeling of foreboding. I cannot speak for my colleagues, but actually—this may be the word that generates some titters, I do not know—as a Unionist, and having explained why I am a Unionist, I get personally upset when some SNP Members, for reasons best known to themselves, seek to portray my Unionism as being anti-Scottish. I would never portray their proud nationalism as being anti-English, anti-Welsh or anti-British. It is simply a different set of values that take us to a particular judgment.

It is possible to be vehemently pro something without being anti, per se, the alternative that is on offer. Whether it is migration, or the dust and sands that settle in this post-EU membership world, let us at least say to all our constituents—in the north of Scotland, the north of Dorset or wherever they may be—that we can engage in these debates in a vigorous, respectful and friendly way. Let us ensure that our motivations as Government Members are not portrayable as the narrow bigotry of some caricature of little England. That belies our motivations and our beliefs, and it has a negative impact on this place. If our constituents expect anything from us, particularly after the last three years, they are expecting all of us to put our shoulders to the wheel to try to raise the quality, tone and temper of our political discourse as we engage in our passionate arguments.